Bantam Materials UK Ltd

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  PET recycling..

Bantam Materials UK Ltd
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Website	www.bantamltd.com

Company Profile

Bantam Materials UK Ltd. was established in 2011 and is a full service recycled plastic supply business committed to sustainability.

Bantam UK developed the market-leading Prevented Ocean Plastic Programme as part of its mission to solve recycling supply problems by providing manufacturers, retailers, and consumers with better plastic choices.

As the first plastic recycling member of the Ethical Trading Initiative, Bantam uses third-party certification organisations to ensure product traceability and drive elevated standards and environmental change. Together with its brand and manufacturing partners, prevent over a billion bottles each year from entering our natural environment.

In 2015, Bantam UK managed to pay for the recycling of over a billion bottles in a calendar year for the first time. Since hitting that milestone, Bantam has been above that level every year since.

Bantam works with developing countries across the globe and invests in multiple supply sites across Central America, Caribbean, South America, Europe, South Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa.

Bantam sells into developed economies including Europe, UK, North America and Australasia with a focus on applying European / North American standards of production in addition to achieving regulatory standards such as REACH, EFSA, & FDA which instils confidence from customers to buy from Bantam sustainably in high volume over the long term.

Services

• Robust end-to-end traceability and regulatory documentation for each individual product supplied
• Continuous audits and coaching to suppliers to meet standards across Europe / North America for both quality and packaging
• Standardised quality control checks at origin before material loads, ensuring compliance with the application requirements
• Local warehousing in key geographic markets allowing Bnatam to offer ‘just in time’ delivery to customers

How it works

Environmental Impact

• A plastic bottle is discarded into the environment
• The bottle is picked by a collector and taken to an aggregation site where they receive immediate payment.
• The bottle gets sorted and sent to production
• Production follows European and North American quality standards
• High quality RPET raw material is produced
• Raw material gets used in high end industry application instead of plastic made from petrochemicals

As a result, the bottle is recycled and prevented from making it’s way to the environment / ocean / landfill

Social Impact

The Story of Bottle Micro Entrepreneurs

• A family in poverty considers their immediate options to earn money
• They organise to collect bottles and receive immediate payment for their efforts
• The family purchases larger collection sacks and eventually save up for a flatbed truck
• They install a cage on the flatbed truck and begin organised operations
• Over time, they are able to save money for a space for their own aggregation site
• After opening multiple sites, the family buys machinery and becomes a factory level recycler

Opportunity is created to either meet basic needs or develop a small business.

Industrial Impact

The industry requires reliable quality that meets demand consistently in large volumes. Beyond this, there are still many business needs to provide a competitive product offering. These, among many other requirements include: Full traceability – Regulation compliance – Packaging – Price – ‘Just in time’ logistics

When these needs are met, real planning and investment can be made and drive the growth of the recycling industry. This drives collection efforts, substantially creating real world social and environmental benefits. Without this cycle of industry demand and economic incentive, recycling activities in developing countries do not happen.

Bantam's achievments

• in numerous developing countries, Bantam is the largest single buyer of the recycled PET produced in the entire country
• introduction RPET to industrial clients in new regions, providing the first ever RPET flake deliveries to that market
• Bantam has developed a cashflow funding programme to promote and increase grassroots bottle collection efforts
• first buyer of recycled PET from multiple countries, helping to get bottle recycling off the ground
• Bantam has developed a customised bottle deposit system for non-first-world economies where no formal recycling exists, built from extensive comparative analysis from various existing models
• Bantam Chaired the European RPET Recycling conference in 2017 (ICIS)
• helped some of Europe’s biggest RPET consumers achieve 100% recycled content in their packaging
• Bantam has engaged with multiple governments at the highest levels to promote the deposit concept and discuss solutions for various recycling issues
• one of the only fully REACH Registered companies in Europe working with the developing world on RPET supply

References

PETplanet Insider Articles

Issue 04 / 2024: Plastic collected in coastal areas

External links

Bantam Website